


salt and box

by themegalosaurus



Series: SPN episode codas [30]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bobby Singer's Panic Room, Dean's Michael Box, Episode: s14e17 Game Night, Episode: s14e18 Absence, Gen, Poetry, Season/Series 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 13:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18476863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus
Summary: We have to put the kid in the box, Dean says.





	salt and box

**Author's Note:**

> i meant for this to be a fic but here we are, haha

When you make a salt circle  
it has to be thicker than you think  
deeper  
the grains piled high  
because the tiniest gap  
the tenth of a millimeter  
and the spirits can squeeze through.

We have to put the kid in the box, Dean says.  
It’s not  
because he hates Jack. It’s for Jack’s own good.  
For everybody’s good.  
He doesn’t know his own strength.

Jack’s not himself, says Castiel.

Sam thinks, he’s a baby. He’s a baby, he’s two years old.

Sam said to Nick, You can burn.  
Jack burned Nick up from the inside out.

You’re a good man, Mom told Sam, before Jack disintegrated her  
into a dust-field fifty feet wide.

I didn’t mean to  
he said  
when Sam found him  
Dean found him  
with his hands in the ashes, trying to raise the dead.

Sam remembers that feeling,  
hands in the soil.  
Dean’s body six feet under  
unsalted, unburned.

You’re a good man.  
You can burn.

Nick crunched a rock into Sam’s skull and it  
jarred  
things   
loose.

Jack goes into the box with his eyes wide open.  
I’m sorry  
he says.

The clang of the panic room door  
and the unforgiving smack  
of its iron walls  
against Sam’s flesh.  
The endless whirr of the fan.

Sam sat with Jack while he was dying but it is Dean  
who hammers the nails  
into the coffin.  
The nails are iron  
and there are sixty-six of them. Dean’s jaw is rigid  
and there is sweat  
staining dark over the back of his shirt.

Jack doesn’t make a sound.  
Instead  
there is only the metallic ring of the nails.

Sam does not leave the room.

When the box is done Dean throws the hammer  
and it leaves a white gouge  
in the wall’s gray concrete.

Not so perfect now,  
Nick said to Sam  
as he beat him with the rock  
and Sam thought  
about the ways he would have maimed himself  
if it would have made a difference.

The panic room and the door locked  
and Sam was calling  
and nobody came.

Bobby-not-Bobby when they find him says  
He killed Mary  
that sonuvabitch should die.

I need you on board with this,  
Dean says to Sam.

Jack can’t die. He will live forever.  
But he goes into the box  
quite willingly.

When Dean leaves the room  
Sam makes a scratch in the carvings on the lid.  
They are many and intricate  
they are each important  
and Sam’s scratch is tiny  
no thicker  
than a grain of salt.

**Author's Note:**

> your thoughts are always A THOUSAND TIMES WELCOME


End file.
